


where i must follow

by RaisingCaiin



Series: RC's Back to Middle-earth Month 2020 [5]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Language Means Things, M/F Friendship, M/M, Musings on Death, The Avari, War of Wrath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: After all his losses there, no one expects Findaráto Felagund to return to Beleriand and fight in yet another war there. And Findaráto will not explain his plans, except perhaps to a persistent childhood friend.(for the B2MeM prompt 3/8/2020:“They had begun to forget: forget their own beginnings and legends, forget what little they had known about the greatness of the world” (Unfinished Tales, Part Three, III, The Quest of Erebor))
Relationships: Edrahil/Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Finrod Felagund | Findaráto & Amarië
Series: RC's Back to Middle-earth Month 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653583
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Back to Middle-earth Month 2020: Endings and Beginnings





	where i must follow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [where i can't follow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099095) by [starlightwalking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking). 



> Kind of tangentially inspired by the official prompt, but *definitely* and directly inspired by starlightwalking/arofili's wonderful take on said prompt, in which Finrod and Edrahil have a heart-breaking talk about death and re-embodiment. It's linked above and _hhhhhhhh_ you should totally read it. . .

After all his losses there, no one expects Findaráto Felagund's declaration that he will return to the middle-lands of Beleriand for the upcoming war. He once reigned there, yes, but he suffered and he died there too, did he not? So when he says that he plans to return, to fight alongside the Valar and the Vanyarin host in their war against Morgoth Bauglir, some try to dissuade him – his own father, Arafinwë, not least among them – but Findaráto will not hear a word of staying behind.

And why, he will not say. For the glory of the Valar? For the vengeance of Finwë's line? One guess is as good as another, for Findaráto himself will not say. 

"I am healed," he pronounces instead when asked. 

"It was my home," he says instead when pressed.

"My decision has been made," he declares instead as a last resort, and enough of his bearing as sovereign of a kingdom long since dead seeps into the words, lending his words a conviction both strange and perilous, that most no longer question him. 

Only Amarië, a childhood friend, persists.

"The Gardens have pronounced you healed, yes," she counters, sitting atop the garden wall as Findaráto checks his packs, tests the blade of a shining new sword. He hisses, swears, as it proves sharp enough to draw blood, and Amarië simply shakes her head as she watches. He will leave on the morrow for Alqualondë and the ships; from there, to Beleriand; and she intuits, somehow, that if she cannot find answers now then she never will.

And so she continues: "And all have heard that this Nargothrond was your beloved home, and no one doubts your stubborn will once its path has been chosen."

Findaráto nods distractedly, his attention more focused on running through a complicated motion with the new sword, and Amarië waits until he has set it back within its sheath to ask: "Who were they, Ingoldo?"

Findaráto's eyes are wide with fear as he rounds to face her, truly look at her, for the first time this day. "Amarië, I-"

Diplomacy he is quite good with, but outright lies have never been his strength. And Amarië cannot help but smile – this, at least, has not changed about the laughing golden prince she once knew, so long ago in the morning of the world.

"I do not mean to stop you, Ingoldo," she tells him softly, patting at the seat on the fence beside her. Dumbfounded, Findaráto comes; sits. "I just want to hear about them."

"How did you know?" he asks, stricken. "They cannot know that I go for love, or they will try to stop me, and I-"

He presses on, every word wilder and more fearful than the next, and Amarië is struck by what he is saying without ever putting it into words: Findaráto is not counting on returning from this war.

"Ingoldo," she murmurs, cutting through his mounting panic with his old name, the one that so few use for him anymore. "I asked first, silly. Who are they?"

Findaráto is tentative at first, but when she simply sits, focuses on him, and waits, he must see that she will not leave this alone. And slowly, so slowly that the morning shades on to afternoon as Amarië waits, he finally speaks.

"Edrahil," he tells her, so quiet and halting that Amarië must lean forward to catch the strange word as it meets the sunlit air. Findaráto guards this word so watchfully, speaks it so carefully, that it almost does not leave his mouth – as if he is loath to share it with a world that he knows must judge it for its strange rhythm, its harsh syllables. But still he speaks it with practice; with devotion.

"His name is Edrahil," he says again, surer now. "He is of the Kwendî. I must go and seek him; I promised him that I would, if he died."

Hearing Findaráto speak thus, of a man she does not know and with an adoration she has never seen, is much like watching him wield a sword – in such actions Amarië catches glimpses of the prince she once knew, but even more, she sees the king that he has since become. A king she does not know.

Findaráto has lived a lifetime beyond the shores of Valinor now, and in moments such as these it shows.

Amarië starts with one of the simpler questions his statement raises. "An Avari?" she asks.

She's heard the term, knows that it names those in the pre-dawn of the world who were too faint of heart to leave the darkness of their wild forests and pass over the sea into the light of the West.

But Findaráto shakes his head. "Kwendî," he corrects, his voice still gentle in a way she has not heard before. "They name themselves Speakers; we were the ones who imagined them Unwilling."

This is news to Amarië – she has not heard even the Vanyarin loremasters speak of such a thing – but she simply nods. "And your Edrahil?" she asks, though she already knows what the answer must be if Findaráto is leaving in search of him. "He died?"

Findaráto nods, a short stiff jerk of his head before he is turning away in his seat so that she can no longer see his face. "Protecting me," he says simply. "As he always said he would."

Amarië wrinkles her brow – Findaráto was a king in Beleriand, was he not, and she has heard fragments of the tale regarding his own death. Surely more than a single elf perished alongside him? But there is more that she does not understand about Findaráto's sudden urge to return to the shores where this Edrahil of his died.

"And you will not await him in the Gardens?" she asks quietly. "Would that not do more good than rushing off to avenge him where he fell?"

Findaráto is turning back to face her then, and there is a fierce light in his eyes that is also new to Amarië; another shade of the king and warrior and man she never met.

"He told me, once, that he will not come unto the West," Findaráto says, and oh but Amarië already knows how this speech must go: there can be no other end to such a defiant devotion. "And so I must return East in search of him. He died following me; now that I live once more, I will follow him." 


End file.
